The Secret Path

by Karen Swan

  ‘Piglet.’ Her father bent down to kiss her cheek too, rising with a wink. Tara could feel her eyes shining with happiness. He turned back to his wife, his movements energized with the vigour of a man thirty years younger. ‘To answer your question, Sam-Sam, I asked Piglet over here because we’ve got some celebrating to do, that’s why.’

  Tara always smiled when her father called her mother by her pet name. It was so . . . unlike her.

  They all watched as he walked over to the drinks cabinet and pulled a magnum of Bollinger from the chiller. Samantha Tremain shifted forwards in her seat again, glancing across at Tara. ‘Bruce, what exactly’s going on?’

  Bruce looked over at Alex, clearly enjoying building the suspense. ‘Do you want to tell her, or shall I?’

  ‘Uh . . .’ Alex’s gaze slid over to Tara. For the first time, she noticed how pale he looked.

  ‘Stage fright?’ Bruce chuckled, popping the cork and letting it fly through the room, hitting the frame of a small Vermeer on the opposite wall. ‘Fine, I’ll be the master of ceremonies.’

  Tara looked back at Alex again as her father poured them each a flute. He looked . . . ill. Feverish, almost.

  ‘Alex . . .?’ she asked in concern. Was he still hungover? Had the port done for him last night? She’d certainly never heard him drunk like that before.

  ‘Yes, Alex – the man of the hour! The man we have been looking for.’

  We? Tara glanced at her father as he placed a glass in her hand. Alex was the man she had been looking for, surely?

  Everyone had a glass now. Her mother was perched on the very edge of her seat as though preparing to either jump up or lie down.

  Bruce Tremain stuffed one hand casually into his trouser pocket. It was the stance he often adopted when he was making a speech – relaxed, confident, loquacious.

  ‘I’ll be honest, when he first walked through that door on Friday night, I had no inkling whatsoever that this young man was going to become such an important part of our family’s life. Samantha and I try to be approachable and welcoming to all our children’s friends – possibly especially to our Piglet’s, as she is so very prickly about all . . . this.’ He gave that vague gesture her family always used when talking about their surroundings. Tara’s gaze slid back to Alex’s again and she gave him an encouraging smile – but he didn’t smile back. In fact, he looked away.

  Tara felt a bubble of fear begin to roil in the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong, she could feel it. Was he regretting it already? Had she pressured him, after all, into doing this before he was truly ready?

  ‘But I did not expect the exciting revelations that have developed over the course of this weekend. Sam-Sam, I know you’ve been annoyed with me for not spending the time with you here that I promised I would, but when I tell you our announcement, I think it will all make sense.’

  ‘Then get on with it, please.’

  Bruce went over and rested a hand on Alex’s shoulder. ‘Alex here came to me with a question, a proposal if you like—’

  Her mother’s hands flew to her mouth and she looked across at Tara with bright eyes.

  ‘—And after many deep discussions over the course of this weekend, I have agreed.’ He looked at the younger man, nodding with an earnest sincerity that, for some reason, didn’t comfort Tara. ‘I’ve made some calls and got the ball rolling on plans to buy nine thousand square miles of land in Costa Rica.’ His grin widened. ‘. . . We’re setting up a national park together.’

  Silence echoed like a gunshot. Tara felt the room spin and tilt, her life beginning to slide away under her feet.

  ‘You’re doing what?’ Her mother’s voice sounded a hundred miles away. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Bruce! That wasn’t what I was expecting you to say at all!’ She glanced towards Tara and then away again, pursing her lips. ‘I mean, why did you have to make such a fanfare over something like that?’

  ‘Because this is the project we’ve been looking for, Sammy, don’t you see? Ever since we signed to the Giving Pledge, I’ve been wondering how the damned hell I’m going to get rid of the money. Seems to me it’s easier to make that sort of money than it is to get rid of it. Then Alex here came along and started talking about his ideas for a huge conservation project in Central America. It’s all about scale! That’s the secret to making a meaningful difference. All these other projects and charities that come to us . . . they’re just tiny islands of endeavour and good intentions. But as Alex here has pointed out to me, islands never thrive, darling! They’re too small, with too many middlemen taking their piece of the pie. I mean, you know what the egos of these guys are like. “My foundation this, my foundation that.” Fifty years from now, they’ll all be defunct! Lasting success means having a long-term vision, getting rid of the middlemen, streamlining the process to a single source of funds – and thinking big. If we want carbon stability then that requires biodiversity and abundance, and that can only be delivered on scale.’

  Tara felt a ringing in her ears, a shrill high-pitched tinnitus that filled her head as the room spun around her in ever faster circles.

  ‘But why Costa Rica?’ her mother asked. ‘I mean, it’s so far away.’

  ‘I like that we have a connection with the place, for one thing.’ Momentarily, her father looked across at Tara and winked at her, oblivious that with every word, her world was collapsing around her. She could actually hear Alex’s voice in her father’s words; they were words he had said to her countless times over dinner, on the sofa, lying in bed . . . But now it was her father saying them, his eyes glittering with pride and excitement, a look Tara had seen so many times before. He loved nothing more than cutting a deal, so to save the planet at the same time . . . ‘But more than that, six per cent of the planet’s biodiversity lives within its borders and through this project, we now have an opportunity to protect that in perpetuity. Alex, our man with a plan, has thought it all through! He’s drawn up a comprehensive ten-year programme for developing the park, with a view to gifting it back to the Costa Rican people at the end of that time, although clearly with caveats attached. Lots of caveats. But I don’t envisage any problems – a quarter of the country is already in private protected ownership; conservation is their thing. Did you know that Costa Rica is on course to be the world’s first nation powered entirely by renewable energies?’

  ‘Bruce, you know I don’t keep a track of these things.’

  ‘Well, to be honest, neither did I. I didn’t even remember that I’d already written Alex here a cheque for five million dollars for his butterfly conservation initiative! I think Patsy must have handled it for me.’ He frowned, as if still baffled that he could have overlooked such a thing. ‘. . . But doesn’t that sum up the problem? There’s too many people doing lots of little things, when the time for that has passed! It’s already too late. The natural world is in crisis and what’s needed now is bold vision and big fortunes. There’s only a handful of people in the world who, like us, can make a difference on the scale that’s needed now.’ He looked at Alex proudly, placing a hand on his shoulder like he was his son. ‘I’m still not entirely sure how it’s all come about, but somehow over the course of our conversations this weekend, Alex has leveraged that little five mill donation into a billion-dollar endowment instead.’

  How it had all come about? Tara knew.

  ‘A billion? All at once? Oh Bruce, don’t you think that’s a bit much?’

  ‘Darling, what have I just been telling you? Saving the planet can’t be done piecemeal. Growing populations, spreading human civilizations and climate change are overwhelming the earth’s resources. It’s no good breaking up our donations into a few million here and there; we can only make a meaningful difference by working at scale. By buying a vast chunk of land to actively foster reforestation projects and preserve the existing forest regions; only then can we lock down vast swathes of land into a permanent carbon storage state.’

  Her mother was finally silenced. Tara hadn’t said
a word. She wasn’t sure she’d even breathed in all that time. She felt removed not just from the conversation, but her own body.

  ‘Do you know . . .’ her father laughed, suddenly amused by something as he jabbed a finger in her direction. ‘I had thought you were introducing us to Alex because you two were an item! It never crossed my mind you were bringing him to me with an agenda!’ He wagged the finger affectionately, like he was indulging her mischief. ‘First it was the mother and child clinics, now this.’

  ‘Tara—’ Alex’s voice was like a blade glinting in long grass. It flashed, making her wince and draw back as finally, her eyes connected with his in a way she knew they never would again. He stared back at her with regret, and yet no regret either, and she remembered the conversation they’d had only this week about conviction. Be prepared to cross the line to get things done.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, setting down her glass with a visibly shaking hand and running from the room.

  ‘Piglet?’

  She left the room in a whirl, her skirts blowing back against her legs as she grabbed her keys from the hall table and made for the front door. Alex’s footsteps were right behind her, his hand on her arm, stopping her.

  ‘Tara, this has nothing to do with us—’

  She spun round and slapped him hard on the cheek, stunning them both. She could feel the gaping great hole already opening up inside her as she let his lie settle. Because it was a lie, she knew that as fact. This was everything to do with them. It was not just why he had chased her down the street that morning, but why he’d been in that very coffee shop. They hadn’t met by chance, he’d planned this from the start. He had known all along who she was, and when she hadn’t shown any signs of introducing him to her parents, he had proposed marriage to accelerate the process. His surprise over dinner when she’d finally told him who she was? A charade. His prevarication over asking her father for her hand at dinner? He needed more time alone with him to make his pitch. James MacLennan had been right. Alex was cheating his way to the pinnacle of his career ambitions by using her as a Trojan horse to get to her father.

  And she knew exactly how it had all gone down. Thanks to that Forbes article – the only one that had ever carried a photograph of her – he had realized the opportunity she presented and he had ruthlessly exploited it. She thought of his hands upon her body, his lips on her skin . . . his baby in her belly . . . Oh God!

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said urgently. ‘But you don’t understand—’

  She stared back at him with a contempt she had never known possible. She understood far more than he knew, her mind returning again and again to the profile he’d printed up and specifically, the faint line which her eye had snagged on, just as her father rang.

  You last visited this page on 18/03/2010.

  A year ago. Eight months before he’d met her. There was simply no other way to spin it – everything he’d ever said to her had been a lie.

  Part Two

  Chapter Nine

  Ten years later

  Holly set down her tray with a clatter, sinking into the chair and letting her limbs splay like a rag doll’s, her head lolling back in a moment of stolen relaxation. ‘Tell me it’s nearly over,’ she groaned, her curly red ponytail almost brushing the floor.

  ‘It’s nearly over,’ Tara replied, biting into her sandwich like she was a lion sinking her teeth into an antelope. She had been on her feet for ten hours and counting, and she’d yet to finish a can of Coke. Was it any wonder she was plagued with almost-permanent headaches?

  Holly pulled herself back into a semi-erect form, taking in Tara’s own quiet exhaustion. ‘Remind me again why we do this?’

  ‘Job satisfaction, apparently.’ Tara arched an eyebrow as she chewed.

  ‘Oh yeah – that’s it. I’ve had so much of that today,’ Holly quipped, a glint in her eyes. ‘So far, I’ve been puked on, put in a stranglehold, called a “fucking bitch” three times and had someone threaten me with a needle.’

  ‘Huh. Quiet shift.’ The lowdown on Holly’s shifts as a registrar in A&E often read like horror stories. Tara watched as her friend sucked coffee through a straw, trying to avoid the ‘bad tooth’ she had been avoiding going to the dentist for.

  ‘Busy one for you?’ Holly asked out of the corner of her mouth, continuing to suck.

  ‘One sub-cranial bleed, one ruptured spleen, two resusc, and a fourth-degree burns admission. No strangleholds though.’

  ‘See? You’re missing out. A&E’s where the excitement is.’

  ‘Not to mention the glamour.’ Tara nudged her friend’s foot lightly, signalling with her eyes the regurgitated carrot remains still stuck to the top of her shoes.

  ‘Eewww! For God’s sake . . .’ Holly grimaced, immediately pushing her plate of spaghetti Bolognese away. She reached for the Chunky KitKat instead. It was a constant wonder to Tara that Holly wasn’t permanently shaking – she survived on caffeine and sugar and weighed about the same as Tara’s left leg. ‘It’s your big night tonight, isn’t it?’

  Tara took another bite of sandwich. ‘Ugh, don’t. I hate awards things,’ she said, her mouth full.

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been invited to one.’ Holly’s tone was arch, but her eyes were dancing. As she had once told Tara, she was in this game ‘for the guts, not the glory’.

  ‘Well, have you built any international paediatric clinics recently?’ Tara’s tone was wry.

  ‘Not recently, no.’ She groaned. ‘I can’t even afford to do my side return.’

  Tara offered no comment. Her friend would never allow her to help out, even if she was daft enough to offer.

  ‘So don’t tell me, you’re already packed for the trip?’

  ‘You mean you’re not?’ Tara quipped.

  ‘We both know I’m going to be sitting on that plane in my scrubs.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Tara took another deep bite of sandwich. She wasn’t sure anything had ever tasted so good, but even chewing felt exhausting.

  ‘If I’m held up, they’ll wait for me, right?’

  ‘No. They’ll have filed a flight schedule.’

  ‘I thought that was the point of having your own plane. They work around you.’

  Tara shot her a stern look.

  ‘What?’ she grinned. ‘Am I wrong? Tell me I’m wrong.’

  ‘It’s about attitude.’

  Holly tutted. ‘Your fortune is wasted on you, d’you know that? God, the things I would do if I was in your shoes! Instead you build baby hospitals and vote Green and recycle the shit out of things. Why do you always have to be so good?’

  ‘Why do you say that like it’s a four-letter word?’

  ‘Technically it is a four-letter word.’

  Tara grinned, letting her mind wander to the promise that the coming week was bringing – getting out of these clothes, this hospital, these shores, back to the place of her childhood dreams, the land of lush rainforests and exotic birds and pristine beaches. She planned to eat hourly and sleep in ten-hour shifts and finally look after herself. Sun, sand, sleep – it had become her mantra, especially on night shifts.

  ‘Doctor Tremain to ICU.’

  They both tensed at the sound of the voice on the tannoy. Tara stared at the half-crescents in the tuna sandwich, the scant evidence that she had had lunch today. Without even a sigh, she dropped it to the plate and pushed her chair back, her tired eyes meeting her friend’s.

  ‘Catch you later then, maybe,’ Holly nodded with a resigned expression. ‘Airport for eight thirty tomorrow, right?’

  ‘Eight,’ Tara corrected, knowing her friend knew the ETD perfectly well. ‘Sharp.’

  Tara picked up her KeepCup and took a large swill of what passed as coffee here before breaking into a jog. She nodded at familiar faces as she ran with careful haste. She never usually ran; it panicked the patients to see doctors sprinting. But as her pager went off once, twice, three times more, she sped up through the too-familiar corridors
and tore up the stairwells; there was no time for lifts.

  She could have run it blindfolded, knowing the layout of the hospital better than her own home. She could locate swabs from the tiniest store cupboard or grab the defibrillator on any ward; she knew which vending machines were tricky, the nicest porters to ask for help, but she had no idea of the names of her neighbours or where the stopcock was in her Pimlico flat, and Rory had pointed out to her only last week that the protective blue film was still stuck to the front of her fridge; she had thought it was supposed to look like that. She’d had it for eighteen months.

  She was there in under three minutes, flashing her ID card against the ICU entry screen, waiting impatiently for the two seconds it took for the doors to swing back with a brushed whisper. Her heart plummeted as she saw one of her F2 team duck her head out of Room Three with a wild-eyed expression, as though looking for someone. Looking for her.

  ‘Talk to me,’ she said, automatically reaching for the stethoscope around her neck as she walked in, the other juniors straightening up and moving back slightly from the bed, revealing the tiny, crushed form of a four-year-old girl. In spite of her training always to be objective, her usually implacable mask slipped and she inwardly reacted with shock and horror again at the sight of the child. No one should endure what that little body had: sixteen broken bones. A ruptured spleen. Fractured skull. Hearing loss.

  ‘BP crashed. Sixty over forty. Fluid, stat!’

  What? Tara’s eyes scanned the monitors, making sense of the digits that told her an accelerating story, a subplot to the simple Happy Ever After Tara had thought she’d given her in theatre nine hours ago. Everything had been fine all day, but now her blood pressure was 60/40, far too low; her oxygen saturation levels were 85; and her pulse was 140 and rising as her heart desperately tried to pump enough blood and oxygen to her organs. She was going to crash again, her system insistently shutting down, her tiny body wildly swinging towards death like a monkey looping between the trees.